The invention relates to a rotating drive mechanism for operating the wing of a swinging door, especially of a vehicle, that is articulated by means of pivoting arms to a rotating post, which it rotates along with, and that, when the door is closed, can be raised by axial displacement of the post into a locked position, where locking components on the stationary door frame and on the wing of the door engage each other, whereby the post is driven by a strictly linear mechanism that is controlled by pressure medium and its linear motion is converted into a rotation by a helical transmission.
A rotating drive mechanism of this type is known. It is described for example in German patent No. 2 062 135.
Once the door has closed, the wing in the known drive mechanism is lifted into a locked position, where it cannot be forced open and where it will not rattle as the vehicle travels.
The rotation and axial motion of the rotating post into the position where the wing of the door is locked is produced in one embodiment of the known rotating drive mechanism by the helical transmission between the linear drive mechanism and the post. This system exploits the feature that, once the wing of the door has entered the doorway, the post can no longer rotate, so that force applied axially to the helical transmission will lift the post against the force of a spring.
There is a drawback to the known rotating drive mechanism in that the reaction torque needed to lift the door and tension the spring is considerable and must be applied through the sealing strip around the door. The resulting friction diminishes the lifting force of the drive mechanism and increases the wear on the sealing strip.
Another drawback is that, if the known rotating drive mechanism is not equipped with a reversing mechanism deriving from the lifting motion of the wing of the door, any force applied in opposition to the motion of the door as it closes for example will lift the door before it has completely closed. Once it has been lifted, however, the wing of the door will not engage the locking components, and the door will not close completely.
It is of course possible to avoid the aforesaid drawbacks as described in German patent No. 2 062 135 by employing one mechanism to swing the wing of the door and another to lift it. This approach, however, is considerably complicated and takes up more space than is normally available in vehicles in particular.